BAYESIAN SEA ICE DETECTION WITH ASCAT

JA Verspeek, M Belmonte-Rivas, A Stoffelen, A Verhoef, J Vogelzang

A sea ice model for the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) onboard Metop-A satellite has been developed. The conditional probabilities for sea ice and wind are combined with a priori information in a Bayesian algorithm resulting in a posterior ice/wind probability. The Bayesian sea ice extent from ASCAT is compared against other sea ice detection algorithms for active and passive microwave instruments, most notably Quikscat and the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR).

The algorithm constitutes a useful tool for sea ice discrimination and helps in the quality control of the wind retrieval procedure. Moreover, the resulting sea ice maps provide relevant information on the state of the ice pack and its seasonal dynamics.